


Mallory O'Brian on Life, Love, and Loss

by westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist



Category: The West Wing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-03-12
Updated: 2005-03-12
Packaged: 2019-05-31 04:38:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15111965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist/pseuds/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist
Summary: Mallory O'Brian on life, love and loss.





	Mallory O'Brian on Life, Love, and Loss

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

**Mallory O'Brian on Life, Love, and Loss**

**by: Kasey**

**Character(s):** Mallory  
 **Rating:** TEEN  
 **Disclaimer:** None of these characters belong to me. This little rambling fic-of-a-thing, however, does.  
 **Summary:** Mallory O'Brian on life, love and loss.  
 **Feedback:** Yes! Please!  


I think it's fair to say I've changed a pretty fair amount over the years. Everyone changes. Y'know, Freud thought that personality was determined by the age of five? 

Of course, he also thought we were a certain way because we never got to have sex with our parents, either.

It's also fair to say there are some things I've **always** been.

And some things I've never been.

Richard used to tell me he was amazed at how strong I was. And I used ttell him he flattered me well but he was a liar. So he'd say something to the effect of "But to live through the sort of childhood you lived through and be so - not helpless - that takes a lot of strength."

Which made it sound like I got raped or beaten or something. Nothinever sdramatic or hideous as any of that.

Dad drank. That's all - he drank. A lot. Far more than anyone shoulever drink. But he never once hit me or my mother, and, so far as anyone knowshe never cheated on Mom with another woman.

Compared to the childhood my father had, my early years were a walk in the park. We always had plenty of money, I lived in a big house and halots ofriends and a big room and I went to a great school and had lots otoys and parents who were both there for me when I needed them.

Okay. I had a mother who was always there when I needed her. Dad…Hwas away a lot. But hey - these days, who doesn't have a parent who goeaway on long business trips? And even when he was home, he drank so much - there was an entire shelf of the pantry that just held scotch.

Y'know, some people, when they get drunk, get violent. Some get sick and end up passing out - that's Josh. That boy can NOT hold his liquorThen - 

Then there's people who get somehow more morose when they drink. Really somber and quiet - that was Dad. He never, y'know, yelled and threw things. He would sit in his study with the shades drawn and the tv on low volume - just watching and shaking his head, from time to time staring off into space.

I remember when I was little, I thought that's how ALL fathers were. It wasn't until I went to my best friend Annie's house and her dad was funny antalkative. He made us peanut butter and apples when we got to her house. He was the one who stayed home during the day - he had some kind of work he diout of his home, maybe writing for the local paper? I forget by now. But sI just figured "Well, that's how the person who stays home is. Her momust be all gloomy like Daddy is." Then her mother got home and was tired but still was - She was so happy to see her daughter and her husband and I couldn't help but think "Maybe if Daddy stayed home instead of going off to work, he'd be as happy as Annie's dad."

I was too young to understand - I was maybe six or seven. All I knew was, sitting around that table in their kitchen, with Annie and her parents. I found myself wanting that so badly I could TASTE it. I wanted Dad to not be so sad and depressed and drink so much!I hadn't realized until I went tAnnie's that not everyone's house smelled like scotch and that fathers were usually happy - at least somewhat.

My father always used to apologize for being on the road so much. could never help but think that he had to be so lonely - without us there with him - 

But then I would look at him and say to myself "But he's so lonely HERE - when we ARE here with him!"

So I didn't know what to do. When I was really little, I used to try and cheer him up - but after awhile I sort of gave up.

The older I got, the more frustrated with him I got. I started understanding that he drank too much, and I wanted him to snap out of it. I wished hwould go get help like the people in books, that he would listen to mwhen I told him he drank too much.

Which just goes to show that I didn't understand nearly as much as I thoughI did.

I still don't really understand. He always says if you haven't been through it, there's no way you can understand it. Which, I suppose, makes me grateful that I can't understand it.

Though maybe someday I will. That idea scares me, but so manscientists think it's genetic - Dad's grandfather, Dad's father, Dad, Mom's father, Mom's brother.

Mom married Dad despite the drinking, I think, because it was the world she was used to. I've done a lot of reading that supports similar theories, and I think...I think it really was that she didn't think anything was really wrong with drinking a lot. Her father had been a drunk all her life and had never really harmed her, so she figured - Plus, y'know the saying that girls always marry men just like their fathers?

That's another thing that makes me nervous. Because I'm very afraid of becoming my mother. Almost as afraid as I am about becoming my fatherThe idea that I would be married but so alone - it makes me crazy.

Which is the reason I give for self-justification of the end of my relationship with Sam.

He's too much like my father, I tell myself. You saw what happened to youparents, do you want that for yourself?

But Sam's really NOT like my father as much as I think sometimes. He reminds me so much of Uncle Jed - excuse me, the President - with the emphasis ogreat oratory and the ideals - if there's someone in that White House who's like Dad, it's Josh.

Which I suppose is fitting, 'cause he always wanted to grow up to be like his father, and Dad and Noah used to remind me of each other, 'cept that Noah didn't really drink. Some at family parties, but never nearly so much as Dad.

I never knew anyone who drank as much as Dad. Not until I got to college - there almost EVERYONE drank.

But not me. Would you? If you knew you had such a predetermination tbe an alcoholic, and you had seen first-hand what that meant, would you test it? Would you tempt fate?

I was 22 when Dad finally went into rehab. Right after I graduated from Boston University. I graduated June 1 and he was in Sierra Tucson as of Jun3. I remember he came home a couple days before the Fourth of July and wthrew him a party - Mom and Uncle Jed and Abby and Noah and Josh and Zoey and Ellie and I. Just a small family party at our big house in DC - nothing to attract media attention or anything. Though the media WAS swarming us at thtime - me and Mom and Dad especially. He was in the Cabinet, of course they were swarming us.

I hated it. I've always hated the press. People don't believe it, but I'valways been shy. I act brash and snarky (a word Josh has taken to using, a Donna influence I think) to cover up for it, because I'm so used to the world of politics where weakness means defeat. So I make smartass comments and I take the bull by the horns because it's what I know I should do.

But I hate the attention. And, like - I like talking to people in small groupor hanging out with friends from school or things like that..but the media? can't stand it. And every time something big happens with Dad, there they are, the cameras in my damn face and the microphones and the reporters wanting answers to questions I wouldn't answer unless my LIFE depended on them - some questions I wouldn't even answer then. After all, there's such things as dignity and decency. Both of which the press has tried to destroy.

I learned early on that there are certain ways you act in certain situations You can act one way at home and another with your friends and another at school and...and a completely different way when it's political. When your parents are holding a party or a big dinner to try and charm some big donorwhen the press confront you because they want to try and get you in something against your father - You act like someone who's perfect. Politics is perception. Perception is everything. Everything.

So I act certain ways out of necessity.

As everyone does.

And some people think I'm brave, but I don't think it's any extra amount of courage or anything. It's not like I've overcome some horrible hardships. Real strength.

That's what it took for Dad to go get help. 

And I try so hard to understand it, but...I can't even FATHOM it. The idea that you could want one thing SO BADLY that it destroys your LIFE. Anthen that the one thing you want more than anything is the one thing yocan't have.

He said at one point that he doesn't want one drink, he wants ten drinks, and it's about all the more I can figure is that it's the same sort of wanting that I had when I was little - I didn't want ONE candy bar, I wanted ALL the candy bars, if there was a candy dish on the end table I would sithere and eat and eat and eat until I ended up getting sick from eating so much. But to sit here and compare those two things makes me feel stupid - it's sobviously not the same thing. Me eating all the chocolate in the dish is nowhere NEAR as serious or dramatic as Dad drinking practically non-stop fotwenty-some years

And I "learned my lesson", as Mom called it for some time afterward. But it's not like when you walk into rehab you "learn your lesson".¦

Right?

That just seems **way** too simplified. If it was really that simple, alcoholics would still be able to have one drink from time to time - if it was a matter of having "learned" that you don't drink so much.

And then there's all these theories about it...some people say adamantly thaalcoholics don't drink for the same reasons normal people drink, butheother people say that often they drink to try and forget all the crap going on - like the war.

When I was nine, I read "A Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery and there's this one chapter where the little prince visits a planet inhabited by a drunkard. And when the prince asks the man "What are you doing?" hsays "Drinking" and the prince asks "Why?" and the man says "To forget", so the prince says "Forget what?" to which the man replies "To forget that I'ashamed" and the little prince asks "Ashamed of what?" and the drunkarscreams "Ashamed of drinking!" 

I'm not sure what just made me remember that.

I drove Dad **crazy** after he got back - Mom too, we watched him like HAWKS because we were so afraid he'd be sneaking liquor or something, I don't even know. It seemed like what we were supposed to do. The day he came home from Sierra Tucson was the only time I've ever seen him cry...and he hugged me first, then he hugged Mom for a really long time...It was really strange for me, because...I don't think you ever get used to the idea of your parents crying. It's like one of those things that doesn't happen - your parents are the super-heroes, they make things magically better and they - they fix booboos and they know all the words to big hard storybooks and thedon't cry.

It's one of those things you never grow out of, I think. Like the fact that, no matter how old you are, the idea of your parents having sex sorta gives ythe creeps. Nevermind that you know it's how you came to exist, it's still just...gross. Shudder.

And eventually, at some point, your parents start having fun meddling in your love life. Which drove ME crazy. And okay, I realize it's thslightest, tiniest bit Dad's business - it IS one of the people who works for him I wadating - but for cryin' out loud, a birthday message?

I've seen other things Sam's written. He's so overqualified for something as stupid and routine as a birthday message...But Dad was having fun. And getting the President in on it - imagine my surprise. 

Abby was as bad from the opposite side - "You have an itch for Sam Seaborn" she said. "Go out with Sam" she said. What she DIDN'T say was "Oh yeah, he's best buddies with a CALL GIRL"?

Nevermind the argument that technically he DID tell me - but I wasn't really paying attention, I didn't need to be, I wasn't there on social business, I'd never met the guy before. And he was making an ass of himself and telling the kids all sorts of ridiculous things about history and I wasn't gonna just sit there and let him continue. THEN he had the nerve to try and get me to tell him which one of the kids was 'his boss's daughter'.

Y'know, it's reasons like that I changed my name. To try and avoid beinassociated with Dad. Don't ever misunderstand me - I love my father. I always have, and I always will, even when he does stupid-ass things to annoy me. But it's...It's not the easiest thing in the world to be his daughter sometimes. Especially not when something big is going on, some Pnightmare.

And in the beginning, the Press didn't know that I was who I was…of course, by now, they know and they still stand outside my apartment building and yelquestions to me when I'm out in public 'cause they think I'll be stupid enough to give them some dumbass comment - Like "Yeah my Dad's a drunk!"

I've been DOIN' this a few years, do ya really think I'm THAT much of an amateur?

So I quietly say "no comment" and push my way through, trying to go on witmy normal life. Besides, I reason. It's worse for my surrogate sisters, Liz and Ellie and Zoey, so what right to do I have to complain too much? 


End file.
